UPDATE: Three words on the Senate Iraq Timeline vote

Pathetic. Predictable. Pusillanimous.

The Democrats were in a bind. They had to … or thought they had to…. push this vote to appease their base at very moment the situation may be improving in Iraq. In fact, the bind was so tight most of these supposedly progressive politicians probably didn’t want to examine the situation with any care or specificity because it would only confuse them and cause ambivalence, second thoughts, all those uncomfortable feelings.

Now, since it is clear (and always has been) Bush will veto this legislation, the Democrats are more than ever in the position of having to root for an American defeat and the defeat of democracy in Iraq. They have bet their political lives on our failure.